How to Play YouTube Videos in Background on iPhone and iPad

Many iPhone and iPad users like to play YouTube videos in the background, often for listening to music or listening to a podcast or talk show. For example, maybe you found a great song on YouTube that you want to enjoy while playing a game, or while practicing a foreign language, or maybe you simply want to listen to the YouTube video in the background while you’re doing anything else. Playing YouTube videos in the background of an iPhone or iPad is desirable for many reasons, but it’s no longer as simple as just pressing play and then returning to the Home Screen of iOS.

This tutorial will show you several different ways to play YouTube in the background on an iPhone or iPad, and the methods discussed work in both iOS 12 and iOS 11.

How to Play YouTube Videos in Background on iPhone and iPad in iOS 12 or iOS 11

The first method we’ll cover works to successfully play YouTube videos in the background of an iPhone or iPad running the newest iOS releases, here is how you can do it:

Open Safari on the iPhone or iPad

Open the YouTube video you want to play in the background

Tap the Sharing action icon, it looks like a box with an arrow flying out of it

Find and choose “Request Desktop Site” in the action options

This will refresh the YouTube video into the desktop version of YouTube

Start playing the song or video in YouTube, and wait for any advertisements to complete

Now press the Safari Tabs button, it looks like two overlapping squares

Switch to a new tab, or create a new tab and load any website in that new tab (like this one)

Now return to the iOS Home Screen and exit Safari, either by pressing the Home button or with the Home gesture

Enjoy your YouTube video playing in the background! The sound will continue to play as you perform other tasks, and you can pause and resume playback through the Control Center of iOS

This has been tested and confirmed to work on any playing YouTube video in the background on both an iPhone and iPad with Safari in iOS 12 and iOS 11.

How to Play YouTube Videos in Background of Locked iPhone or iPad

Another trick to play YouTube videos in the background works to play the audio while the device is locked, meaning the screen is off and the device isn’t in use. This backgrounds the YouTube video playback but of course the iPhone or iPad isn’t in use once the device is locked, instead the device can be unattended. This trick works with either iPad or iPhone as well, as long as they have the official YouTube app installed in iOS. Here’s how this trick works:

Open the YouTube app, then start playing the video you want to play in the background

Now press the Power / Lock / Sleep button quickly twice, the video should continue to play in the background while the device is locked

Play YouTube Videos in Background on iPhone and iPad with Other Browser

Another option that works to play YouTube videos in the background is to use a different web browser.

For example, many users report luck playing YouTube videos in the background from the Opera, Dolphin, and Firefox web browser apps in iOS.

Your results may vary, but share with us what works for you in the comments below. The method used in the screenshots here is the first approach outlined above, involving Safari Request Desktop -> Play YouTube Video -> Switch Safari Tabs -> Leave Safari to continue playback in the background.

As you probably have noted, the task is of backgrounding YouTube videos and listening to the audio track elsewhere in iOS is becoming more challenging, and many of the methods that used to work to play backgrounded YouTube no longer work in iOS. For example, the method of playing YouTube in the background on iOS 9 and iOS 8 does not work in iOS 12 or iOS 11, so instead users of the new operating system will have to follow the instructions outlined above.

Which method are you using to play YouTube videos in the background on an iPhone or iPad? Do you have another solution that isn’t mentioned here? Share your own experience listening to YouTube in the background of an iOS device in the comments below!

18 Comments

You do realize that you can also press and hold the “reload page” icon on the right side of the address bar of safari to open a pop up menu which also allows to request the desktop version of the site.
Quickly double clicking the power button to lock the device to keep the video playing doesn’t work on iPhone X.

So tried this many times on an iPhone X and unless I’m missing something the instructions don’t exactly work. What does work is just hitting play and leaving Safari which would stop the video but then all you have to do is hit play from the control center and that works. No need to open new tab. Problem with your instructions I kept running into was that once you request desktop site the video plays in full screen so there is no way to create a new tab. Exiting full screen pauses video and hitting play again goes into fullscreen. Definitely never had to create a new tab but just playing around with the control center play button made it work.

It works on iPhone X as instructed, but it sounds like you came up with another way to do it too. I can’t replicate your playback approach without a new tab or desktop site however.

I think your assumption about missing something in the instructions is correct because I am using it as described, but I can’t do what you described which I guess if it works then it is no matter. For me, backgrounding Safari and trying to play from Control Center doesn’t work unless you put it into Safari Desktop Version of YouTube, and YouTube.com appears to pause the video by default unless it’s in desktop mode which is why I assume it must be the desktop site requested. As for the video keeps going fullscreen you just have to exit out of full screen mode and play it in the browser without using the full-screen playback. The tap targets are small so maybe you are hitting something with a finger unintentionally.

Anyway, it makes you wonder why YouTube is making this difficult… is it agreements with video posters to not use YouTube as a streaming music service like Spotify? Or what gives? Any ideas? Maybe it is Safari and not YouTUbe?

Yes it does, it works in iOS 12 on iPad, you just have to follow the exact instructions as detailed. What you meant to say is that you can’t get it working properly, likely you missed a detail somewhere.

Open YouTube, request desktop site. Play the YouTube Video in the desktop site on iPad Safari. Then open a new browser tab in Safari, the tab will keep playing audio. Now you can switch apps from Safari and the YouTube video plays in the background.

I use this constantly, it works exactly as described but if you skip any instruction or detail it will not work. You probably did not request the desktop YouTube site, that is a requirement, then open a new tab, that is a requirement.

I tried doing this on my iPhone 8 running iOS 12.1 and when I hit the power/lock button twice the video still stops playing. I guess YouTube/Google disabled the workaround in the newest version of their app.

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